


fashionation

by 01nm



Category: Fantastic Four, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Autistic Peter, Christmas, Embroidery, Fashion & Couture, Fluffy New Year 2017, Gen, Identity Reveal, Intersex Character, Knitting, Nonbinary Character, Precious Peter Parker, obligatory Deadpool cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9402878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/01nm/pseuds/01nm
Summary: Peter "fashion disaster" Parker.(the spider is a bit wobbly and crooked, but it's still damn adorable.)





	1. fascination

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Biromantic_Nerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biromantic_Nerd/gifts), [aloneintherain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aloneintherain/gifts).



> PSA: I've been having both medical and technical problems recently, so posting/updating is slowing to a crawl. Please be patient.
> 
> happy belated winter holidays to Biromantic_Nerd, aloneintherain

 

Peter picks restlessly at the self-sewn lace dangling at the bottom of the thrift store sweater he is currently wearing overtop of pale blue jeggings. The sleeves, which are rolled up into a somewhat ineffective cuff, drag across the bottoms of his fingertips.

 

Secretly, Peter sweats about his boldness in terms of his outfits these past few months. He's surprised that he hasn't been outright 'fired' yet, as if he wasn't threatened with the door several times a week already.

 

...but, according to the big mustache-ly boss himself:

 

"You think this is a _real job?"_ JJ growled, looking down on the stiffly standing Peter despite being the one sitting. _"Bah!_ You're just taking crummy pictures and throwing one or two actually _good_ ones my way whenever you manage to get your head out of your tuckus - you're getting _paid_ by the _used picture!_ This isn't a _real job!_ And neither are those ones where all they do all day is flip burgers and cry over their wasted GEDs! Now, what a _real job_ is -"

 

So, technically, this means that Peter doesn't have to adhere to the Daily Bugle's office dress code, right?

 

"Looking nice today, Peter," comments Betty with a smile on her face as she multitasks, flipping through a folder with one hand and typing out an email with another. Magic. "Oooh - I just _love_ your scarf! I need to get myself one of those sometime soon."

 

"Thanks!" Peter smiles and pauses long enough to let Betty get a good look at his outfit. He makes no mention about the scarf itself, but pride burns through his blood. "And it _is_ getting pretty cold out. Make sure you bundle up."

 

"Will do!"

 

Stepping into the elevator, Peter adjusts his white knitted scarf. His hands slide over the embroidered Captain America shields on the ends, right before the fray begins, and smiles a little bit to himself.

 

Being proud (smug) in secret can’t be _that bad_ for one’s soul, can it?

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

“Is this what you do with all your free time?”

 

“Pretty much.” Peter pokes the needle through the knitted blanket, sticking his tongue out of his mouth as if it’ll help him concentrate better. Who knows; maybe it does. “Sometimes I play around on Wikipedia and lose about five hours.”

 

This isn’t even a spider-related cover up story. How shameful.

 

“How can someone ‘play around’ on Wikipedia? And for _five hours?”_ Mary-Jane asks, her face doing that thing where Peter doesn’t know if she’s making a joke or is genuinely confused. “Never mind. Forget I asked. Of _course_ you could find a way to make Wikipedia something other than the bane of academia’s existence.”

 

Peter squints at where she lounges about on his bed, all covered in fluff and fuzzies from the blankets yet appearing utterly unaffected by the small army of cling-ons.

 

Yea. He’s at least 75% sure that she’s making a joke.

 

“When’s Harry gonna show up?” Peter asks; a clumsy attempt at changing the topic at hand. “You said he was on his way, like, an hour ago. And we both know he has chauffeurs and the rules of city rush hour don’t apply to him.”

 

“He’s just avoiding coming too early so that he doesn’t actually have to help you do any work before lunch with May,” MJ tells him right as he accidentally stabs into the skin of his outer pinkie. Owch.

 

“Kinda like you are right now?” Peter raises his eyebrows at how the model simply reclines on his bed and flicks through her phone. The most she does is lift certain pieces of fabric up or loudly proclaim what colors he should use next.

 

“You should feel lucky,” she sighs dramatically, flipping her hair and crossing her legs with bright red fuzzy socks on her feet. “There’s a model willingly in your room, on your bed. All the other nerds would’ve wet themselves the first time I graced their doorsteps with my three inch heels.”

 

“Uh-huh…” Peter grunts distractedly, sticking the needle in between his teeth and biting down as he changes the blanket’s position. “Are you sure navy and white are good to go with maroon?”

 

MJ laughs at him. Peter, for the life of him, can’t figure out why.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

Peter’s wearing a skirt today.

 

The wind of the city pushes against the tall, tall buildings like a big bulky bully, much like the way people on the ground stare straight ahead and brush past people with other things on their collective minds.

 

The teen tries his best to look nonchalant – tapping away at his phone and only staring forward when he has to walk. His skateboard is shoved inside of his nondescript bag, thumping against his back every time his gait is less than even.

 

The pleats of his black skirt flap, lightly nudging his knees much in the way tall flowers do. He wiggles his hand inside of the light green pocket of his white hoodie for warmth.

 

Not for the first time today, he wonders if the tiny yellow stars dotted about his hoodie are too ‘bright.’ Too eye-catching.

 

He wonders ( _worries_ ) if anyone has taken any pictures of him while he wasn’t aware. It’s happened before.

 

Maybe he’ll end up on somebody’s blog.

 

Peter doesn’t know what he wants out of _this_ – out of walking to work in, specifically, this outfit, the one with the new skirt, his _only_ skirt (so far.)

 

Maybe he wants someone to compliment him. Will that make him feel more confident, he mentally interrogates himself, absentmindedly stepping over the curb.

 

Maybe he wants a, god forbid, confrontation of some sort. A time where he can instill his knowledge on a large crowd of people. It’d worked before, as Spider-Man. He told off a group for being openly islamophobic – one of the many times he used his masked power of anonymity to step in. He knows that he should’ve done it more quietly, for the victim’s sake, but there is nothing ‘quiet’ about the red and blue iconic suit.

 

Except, he isn’t Spider-Man right now. He’s just some kid who wears, _is_ wearing, what they want to wear.

 

Peter sighs gustily, crossing the last street that will lead him to the Bugle’s tall building.

 

He decides that he just wants to be left alone to make his own decisions, he thinks.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

“Gwen?”

 

“Hm.”

 

“…Do you think I’m... good-looking?”

 

Gwen tears her gaze up from her workstation, blinking several times at her companion with no discernible expression.

 

Peter, however, by now knows that ‘no expression’ on Gwen can be equated to a _calculating_ expression, which can further be equated to a _very mentally taxing time._

 

Gulp.

 

He hastily looks away and down, to where he’s absently cradling a mostly finished embroidered blanket. It’s a tan color, this time, with bright green and blue designs.

 

…He’s still a bit confused as to his own chosen color combinations.

 

“Peter,” Gwen says, soft and considering. She takes her reading glasses off and sets them down in one swipe. “Of course I think you’re pretty, but what brought this on?”

 

Peter fiddles with the rubber band around his wrist.

 

He _could_ tell the truth. Emphasis on the ‘could.’

 

“Oh, you know…” Peter evades, lifting the blanket out of his lap several times in aborted movements to do something he can’t quite make up his mind about. “That tight- the spandex suit is getting to me a little. I mean, have you seen what some people write about m- about Spidey on their blogs? Truly scandalous stuff, I’m yellin’ ya’.”

 

Okay, so it’s the half-truth. He can’t exactly mentally justify eating _just one more muffin_ anymore when he knows, intimately, that the entirety of New York City (and _himself!_ ) are going to be taking 360 photographs of his thighs and love handles, whether existing or the lack thereof.

 

Honestly, he doesn’t need a paparazzi to get his worst angles for him. He can do it himself most days. Either way, somebody will tear down his body image piece by piece in an editorial format whether he likes it or not.

 

“We both know what you do in that ‘spandex suit’,” Gwen continues, shimmying around the table and somehow managing to knock absolutely zero things over. He’s jealous. “Saving people, helping NYC –“

 

“Ah…” Peter sniffles abortively.

 

“ – Don’t even try to deny this, bug boy,” the geneticist wrinkles her nose. It’s adorable and unfair. “I think you’re pretty – both in an out of the suit, you know. And it’s not just because you’ve got weird skinny abs that make no sense…” She jabs him in the stomach, and he giggles a little at the unexpected gesture.

 

Peter sighs. It’s a bit dramatic. “Yea, okay…”

 

“’Yea, okay,’ says the guy with _super spider powers…”_ Gwen grumbles somewhat, throwing a smirk over her shoulder as she sits back down at her stool and puts her glasses on again, looking somehow at home in the lab’s fluorescent air.

 

Peter kicks his legs lightly against the counter he’s perched on and purses his lips down at his half-finished embroidery job.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

The item catches Peter’s eyes while he’s sitting outside the fancy (boring) store's dressing room, bored ( _very_ bored) yet still listening to Harry natter on about somebody’s “reckless behavior” (it might be Peter he’s talking about, actually) as he waits for his friend to get done trying on _another_ pair of slacks.

 

Man, Peter has a certain amount of… _dislike_ for ‘menswear.’ Suits and button-ups and ties… Even the shoes are awful to look at.

 

Though maybe he's biased, as one of his biggest enemies (rhyme with _slob_ -lin) masquerades as a suit-wearing businessman.

 

As morbid as it is to think about; Peter’s been to several funerals in his life, and wore the ‘appropriate attire’ at every single one of them. It’s safe to say that, for him, ‘menswear’ is the worst type of clothing.

 

Idly fixating on another wall, Peter’s eyes slide out of the fancy mall shop and into one of the adjacent shops across the lane. It’s much less fancy than the shop they’re in, and he bets that it’s cheaper, too.

 

Wrinkling his nose, he blinks a few times at a bright blue pair of… pants?

 

…Huh.

 

It’s an absolutely abominable pair of overalls. Dark denim, huge pockets, and garish red and orange and pink flowers embroidered up the right pant leg.

 

Peter instantly falls a little bit in love with it.

 

He has to forcefully stop himself from wandering over to this intriguing piece of clothing, waiting instead until Harry is at least halfway out of the changing room before taking off.

 

“Peter! Oh, for chrissakes, not again…” Harry mutters loudly, tossing his armful of clothes at a nearby attendant (who is blank-faced and blasé at the treatment) and then hurriedly power walking to where Peter seemingly floated off to.

 

The business-world’s scion then has to gape slightly in an ungainly way as Peter proceeds to spend ten dollars (an overshoot for a Parker, these days) on those _ugly overalls._

 

“Taking up gardening, Pete?”

 

“Shut up, Harry. Maybe I _will_ garden in these someday.”

 

“In a retirement home, maybe.”

 

“In what world could I afford a retirement home?”

 

“Don’t be silly; I’ll pay for one. We’ll both be in the same home, of course.”

 

“…You are so weird.”

 

“Sipping martinis and playing chess –“

 

“I can’t play chess and I don’t think I’ll ever drink –“

 

“ – ‘til death do our wrinkly derrieres part.”

 

Peter sighs and Harry calls a chauffeur. “Oh how poetic.” He ignores the affectionate butterflies in his stomach.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

“I am not doing this with you right now,” Peter declares stiffly, folding his arms and standing on his toes to seem taller. He gets a shirt (that probably costs more than his camera) thrown at his face for his trouble.

 

“Don’t be like that, Parker! I’ve seen your outfits - you have absolutely nothing respectable to wear. Well, nothing that isn’t obviously stolen from a kitschy indie movie set,” Johnny complains for the fifth time as he digs through his closet, needlessly and dramatically tossing his own expensive clothes everywhere like this is some kind of high school prom escapade, “and you want me – _me!_ A Super _super_ -model – to just sit back and do nothing about it? It’s like you’ve never met me in your entire life.”

 

“That’s because Peter Parker _hasn’t_ met Johnny Storm in his life,” Peter reminds the ‘Super super-model’ with a huff. Johnny huffs right back, the scoundrel. “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal!”

 

“Peter, Peter, Peter…” Johnny sighs, breathing metaphorical drama like dragon smoke. Peter sighs very _un_ -dramatically (thankyouverymuch) in response. “If you go in there looking like a ragamuffin, as you usually do –“

 

“Wow, hey –“

 

“ – then how in the world can I justify waltzing over to flirt with you all night?”

 

“Wh- what, no, you’re not going to flirt with me- that’s, that’s just, just…” Peter pinches the skin between his eyebrows and shuts his eyes tight for a few moments. “No. Just, no.”

 

“Listen,” Johnny tells him, despite the continuous groan he is emitting to try and deter this behavior. It’s obviously not working. “This is a _gala_ – a public place with the bigwigs and the frou-frou’s and the _scientists,”_ Johnny says the word ‘scientists’ like one would say ‘treat’ in front of a dog, “it’s the perfect place to boost your popularity!”

 

“I’m _just_ a photographer!” Peter tosses his noodle arms out in protest. “I’m not supposed to _be popular_ – I’m supposed to- to be quiet and _do my job!”_

 

The Human Torch pats Spider-Man-in-disguise’s back as if to console. “Maybe someone will offer you a _better_ job.”

 

Thankfully (for Johnny), Susan walks into the room before Peter can give in to the wills of a violent mind and web the youngest Storm to the ceiling.

 

“Oh, hey there Peter,” she greets him with. “Didn’t know you were in Johnny’s room this whole time. I would’ve told you two to keep the door open had I known.”

 

She winks at Johnny. Johnny sputters something. Peter blinks obtusely.

 

Whatever it was, it flies right over his head.

 

As usual.

 

“We were just getting ready for –“ Peter stops in the middle of his sentence, going stock still as he stares intensely at Sue’s form.

 

The Fantastic Four member shifts uneasily. Peter continues to laser-focus on her body. “Um… Something the matter?”

 

“Susan Storm,” Peter whispers.

 

“…Yes –?”

 

“Susan Storm,” Peter repeats, his eyes dancing. “Light of my life: Can I borrow that top?”

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

“ _Slumber party!”_ MJ had declared, tossing herself bodily into Peter’s arms as they got out of the cab. He could ever so faintly smell alcohol on her breath, but said nothing.

 

Peter walks down the sidewalk with MJ, the two having taken a cab from the gala in Manhattan back down to Queens, before deciding that a second cab to MJ’s hotel in Manhattan would be too expensive. Aunt May wouldn’t mind the extra company tonight. It would be like old times when her and Peter were just a few houses away at all times.

 

“Harry tried to get me to wear a suit.” Peter shivers slightly in the night air, now more than happy that he’s wearing black skinnies under the big white turtleneck sweater dress he borrowed from Sue Storm. His bright blue rain boots squelch against the wet pavement. “But, you know how he is in those kinds of stores –“

 

“He forgot all about getting you an outfit and started shopping for himself, didn’t he?” MJ laughs, tossing her head back. The hair in her complicated up-do doesn’t come undone in the slightest.

 

When they get to Peter’s home, MJ immediately smooches a surprised Aunt May on the cheek, then jogs upstairs claiming that she “just _has_ to get this glitter eye shadow off. It’s itching like crazy!”

 

Peter hangs out in the kitchen with his aunt for a little while, snagging a couple of the celery sticks filled with peanut butter and raisins that she is making for a snack.

 

“That’s an adorable outfit, Peter,” May comments, slicing a few freshly washed celery sticks into smaller chunks. “Though that top is a little bit… long, for a boy, don’t you think? Why, it almost reminds me of a dress...”

 

“Well,” Peter says lightly, dancing through the kitchen with peanut butter on his hand and pretending it's not there while being utterly hyper aware of its gooey existence. “I’m not really a boy, though, am I?”

 

Evading topics and giving as vague of an answer as possible: Peter Parker’s life specialty.

 

He then has to twirl semi-dramatically out of the kitchen in order to dodge the door jamb, which he’d stupidly nearly slammed himself into. Aunt May’s eyes follow him up the stairs, giving him a strange, strange look.

 

But, well, when _isn’t_ she giving him a strange look?

 

Peter crunches down on his celery and digs through his ‘unofficial Spidey bag’ in his room. MJ’s identical bag sits on top of his bed, a couple of pieces of clothing and makeup spilling haphazardly out of it.

 

MJ and Peter had gotten each other the same exact bag one Christmas, and MJ thought that it was so funny that they decided not to return their gifts.

 

The bags are plain-looking totes with tasteful red designs. Peter loves his because he has tons of ideas of what to embroider them with, whereas MJ can’t wait to fasten pins or iron patches onto hers. Peter would make fun of her for being such a Girl Scout, but he’s honestly a little jealous of the NASA patch she got ahold of.

 

The reason neither of them have done so yet is because they’re both still giddy about having _matching purses._ It’s just _so cool._ Also fashionable in a tacky, middle school kind of way.

 

Because MJ is still using (hogging) the bathroom, Peter filches a couple of face wipes from her bag and uses those as a substitute for an actual face washing. He’s lost as to what to do for teeth brushing, so he gives up on that. Because obviously he loves feeling gross and being a gremlin.

 

Sleepily, he flicks through his camera and makes mental notes about all of the shots he took at the gala, and would have to most likely turn in tomorrow.

 

He yawns, knowing that JJ will probably want fully edited photos with all the works in only half (or _less than half)_ of the time. And Peter, as opposed to an actual employee, was used as the photographer specifically in order to save money, no doubt. Cheapskate.

 

The tired spider shucks off his pants and crawls onto the bed, absentmindedly placing MJ’s bag onto the floor as he goes.

 

Peter falls asleep with his camera nestled up against the crook of his neck, before MJ even has the time to poke her head in and say “I’m taking a shower tonight – gotta get up early tomorrow… Psst, Peter? Oh, he’s asleep…”

 

Somewhere down in the kitchen, Aunt May breathes an exasperated sigh and gives up on fixing any dinner.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

Peter wakes up in a ball of a million flying limbs, nearly launching his camera across the room and into the wall, before he’s leaping out of bed and, subsequently, out his bedroom window, tote bag in tow.

 

MJ took the wrong purse.

 

MJ took the ‘unofficial Spidey bag.’

 

Peter’s gonna have a hernia.

 

 _MJ’s_ gonna have a hernia if she takes one look into that bag and gets an eyeful of _certified_ _spidey secret._

 

Cursing himself for putting MJ’s bag on the floor next to his last night in a tired, thoughtless manner, Peter stealthily crawls across the walls of the apartment next door as he scopes out the area.

 

Peter was barely awake when MJ smooched him on the forehead (probably Aunt May, too) and jogged out the door, but he remembers that it was around five minutes ago. If she is currently walking to a more populated part of the city in order to either catch a cab or meet a designated driver, then she couldn’t have gotten too far…

 

Hissing in distress, Peter readjusts the tote bag on his shoulder. He also tugs at the end of the sweater dress he forgot to take off last night which has _zero pants under it right now._

 

Talk about a bad start to the day.

 

At the flash of red hair swinging as the person it’s attached to turns a corner, Peter springs forward across the walls of buildings, more than thankful that it’s closer to ‘too early’ right now; hopefully no one will be looking out their window for a while.

 

His feet hit the ground and he realizes that not only is he not wearing any pants, he’s also not wearing any shoes. Marvelous.

 

“MJ!” Peter calls, hurrying to turn the corner and catch his friend. “MJ, wait!”

 

“Peter!?” MJ spins around, tote bag on one shoulder, looking tired but now awake in surprise. “What’s wrong? What are you doing…? _Where_ are your _shoes?”_

 

“Eh…” Peter huffs, shaking slightly from the small bout of stress. He lets it all out in a big whoosh. “You, uh… You took the wrong bag.”

 

“Oh, boy!” MJ trills in utter confusion, eyes wide as she twists her lips up self-deprecatingly. _“Whoops._ Sorry about that. Thanks for getting this to me, Peter; I doubt they would’ve let me in without some I.D.”

 

“Haha… Yea, no problem,” says the person who, apparently, just ran several blocks with no pants or shoes on. He accepts his tote back with grateful arms.

 

“I… Geez, you look really out of it,” MJ observes, peering down at his flushed face. “Do you want me to walk back with you?”

 

“No, no, it’s okay, I’m just a little out of breath…” Peter wrinkles his nose at the feeling of harsh, cold concrete under his bare feet. The microhairs on his toes brush uncomfortably close to the rock. _This_ is why he wears special shoes as Spider-Man. “Hey… Do you think maybe we should drop the ‘matching bags’ and start customizing them? Y’know – repeat performances aside…”

 

“Yea, that’d probably be a good idea,” MJ chuckles lightly. “Don’t even try not showing me up with your mad needle skills, Tiger - I’ll know if you hold back.”

 

“Great,” Peter offers, before promptly finding some alley to suit up in. He kind of doubts that he’ll be able to get back to sleep after _that_ scare.

 

Of course, this doesn't stop him from hearing the tail-end of an apparently frantic May calling a confused MJ, both of them absolutely baffled as to why Peter took such drastic measures as to disappear out the window and not the front door, especially without giving his aunt some sort of warning first.

 

Peter rolls around on top of somebody's roof with complete, 100% embarrassment. He's going to have to come up with a pretty great excuse after all this.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

There’s a primly wrapped present on top of the western Brooklyn building he tends to perch upon (he thinks it might be some sort of insurance agency) when surveying this part of the city. He likes this spot because it’s close to a couple of construction sites, and everybody knows that he and the cranes are in a secret relationship.

 

Spider-Man’s routines are definitely hard to follow, as far as Peter understands, because this has never happened before. Sure – crooks have placed bombs or traps in areas with a high traffic for crime (or a straight-up setup made specifically for capturing, incapacitating, or just plain _killing_ your friendly neighborhood spider), but no one has ever _left something_ for him in a specific place like this.

 

Especially never a present labeled ‘ **For Spidey ;;;;)))).** ’

 

Peter may not be an expert on emoji etiquette, but he’s pretty sure that that winky face has too many eyeballs.

 

It’s highly suspicious, and bordering on bad taste.

 

Cautiously, but not without barely hidden excitement (a _present!_ Who doesn’t like _presents!?_ Potential death-inducing contents aside…), Peter circles around the box on his toes and fingers. He probably looks like a true arachnid-human right now.

 

Spider-Man really hopes that there’s no hidden camera or something recording all this. He’d probably be embarrassed by the footage.

 

Gathering up the courage to stop dancing around the thing like a peacock (spider – haha), Peter nabs it with both of his hands and crouches naturally on the roof of the building. He turns the unknown object a couple of times in his hold, noting how the weight shifts and how solid or soft it feels in different spots.

 

“Ahh…” Peter unconsciously makes a strange noise of discomfort and indecision. “Here… Goes nothing. Mmmmm please don’t be a bomb please don’t be a bomb _please –“_

 

It’s not a bomb.

 

It’s a sweater.

 

“Cover up that hot… _cold?_ Booty… _Body?”_ Peter blinks a couple of times and shakes his head at the strangely illegible note from inside the box, all nestled up against the sleeve of the dark black and red knit sweater.

 

He’s got, like, three guesses as to who left this here. A vague idea. He’s not going to be pointing any fingers, but…

 

Peter unfolds the sweater.

 

…Oh, screw it.

 

“Deadpool…” Spider-Man doesn’t know whether to growl and shake his fist at the nearly dark sky or, or…

 

Or give up all pretenses saying that he totally does not want to put this giant, fluffy, Spider-y-ish themed (it looks like whoever was knitting it forgot that they were supposed to be making a Spider-Man sweater, and starting making a Deadpool one halfway instead, but anybody who doesn't know who Deadpool is wouldn't be able to tell anyway) top onto his continuously shivering, merely spandex-clad body.

 

It’s cold out here, okay!?

 

Maybe if he takes it _suuuper_ easy, he can wear this and his new socks overtop his spidey-suit…

 

“This is _totally_ a smart idea,” Peter tells himself, posing semi-heroically on the roof with the sweater draped over his chest in a mock try-on session. “I don’t see how this could backfire _at all.”_

 

A couple of days later, Spider-Man finds himself defending his clothing choices to many people in a short, humiliating amount of time.

 

It’s like NYC doesn’t want its one true hero to be _fashionably warm_ or something. Ungrateful.

 

“You know what,” an irate Spidey says to a group of chortling baddies all strung up like Christmas lights across the front of a roughed up building, “I don’t _have_ to call the police. I could just… oh, I dunno, leave you guys up here for a couple of hours. I mean, frostbite's not _that_ deadly, is it?”

 

“Uh…” One of them says, stupefied. The laughter stops.

 

Peter sniffs, nodding to himself. Obviously, these _randos_ don’t know the intricate nuances and differences between his dissolving and non-dissolving web-fluids. “I want handwritten apologies from each of you. At least two pages, double spaced, APA style. It counts for 40% of your final grade; no extensions!”

 

At a round of blank and irritated stares, the sweater-clad vigilante snorts in amusement. “I was joking – you guys are totally not getting down from there anytime soon just to _write a paper.”_ He sighs and rests his cold, masked cheek on one hand delicately, as if burdened by emotion. “I suppose no one will be passing the _Good Citizens_ class this semester. Oh well.”

 

“I like your socks,” one of them pipes up, almost hesitantly. “They’re… they’re pretty cute.”

 

“ _Woo;_ you think so?” Peter gives a theatrical twirl, stretching his legs all funny to let everyone get a good view of his neat blue-green thigh-high argyle socks. “It’s basically like wearing two pants at once, but without all the tightness, and you can shuck ‘em off anytime they get annoying, you know?”

 

“Yea, because Spidey is notoriously bad at pulling peoples pants down…” Someone who appears slightly shady (who _doesn’t_ around here?) passes by, chuckling to themselves at their own joke.

 

Spidey coughs awkwardly into their gloved fist. “Yup. Thanks for that, you obviously lawful citizen whom I cannot also web up because that’s rude…” Oh, how he wishes he could, though.

 

The passerby gives him a thumbs up.

 

Spider-Man blames Deadpool for this. Just because he can.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

Peter hears about another one of Jameson’s ‘plans’ through Sandra, who heard it through Mr. Swenski, who heard it through Betty, who heard it through the small gaggle of equally eccentric NYPD officers who gathered into the Bugle’s boss’ small office the other day for a cup of coffee and some lengthily discussed bad decisions.

 

In the end, he does the smart (not smart at all) thing and ignores this new swell of information (something about luring Spider-Man into arrest, as if _any_ plan like that has _ever_ worked before. Hint: It has not), doesn’t even panic about it, not a little bit, until he’s doing a half-arsed embroidering job on his tote bag and somehow watching these plans come to fruition on the living room television screen.

 

…Oh, for the love of –

 

“Aunt May,” Peter mildly comments, as if he isn’t currently dying inside, “I’m gonna be late for dinner. Gotta go help out at the office for a bit. You know how the copy machine gets when I’m not around to tame it.”

 

May, bless her soul, is so used to this erratic behavior that she only barely looks up from her dreadful knitting project (seriously, it’s a crime against old ladies with hobbies everywhere – sorry Aunt May, but that is definitely not what a scarf should look like) as she sits in her old rocking chair, the one that hasn’t stopped creaking ever since Uncle Ben… hasn’t been around to fix it. “That’s alright, Peter. I was thinking about visiting the two misses down the block tonight, anyway.”

 

Jameson’s voice on the TV, ranting and raving as he ever does, spurns Peter halfway up the stairs when May calls out once more.

 

“Yea?” If Peter is slightly sticking himself to the banister to avoid overbalancing onto the floor, nobody has to know but him.

 

“Be sure to wear that nice new sweater you got.” A hammer hits Spider-Man in civvies’ heart. “It’s cold out there. And we all know how little you like to wear, Peter.”

 

“O… Of course,” Peter squeaks. It takes him a few moments to get his feet working again.

 

Because, of course of course _of course._ The internet as well as the local news stations have already photographed and released public pictures of Spider-Man in that Spider-y-ish-kinda-Deadpool-but-who’s- _really_ -counting sweater.

 

He’d tried to hide it from Aunt May – really, he did! Even more than usual! Like, _spidey-suit_ levels of discreetness were attempted (and somehow failed.)

 

Alas, Peter thinks as he forgoes using the front door like a normal human and instead leaps out his bedroom window, suited and sweatere’d and ready to go. He’s just going to have to admit that Aunt May probably figured out his double-life a long time ago, as lived old women like her were wont to do.

 

He has to give her kudos for playing along for all these tumultuous years, though.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally a oneshot, but then it became very long and ungainly so I decided to slice it into two parts to avoid the pacing becoming suddenly weird.
> 
> some of the outfits peter wears are based off of a few anons/asks [aloneintherain's tumblr](http://captainkirkk.tumblr.com/) got a while ago. otherwise, they're just little outfits I thought up of on my own. I don't own anything that peter actually wears (thought I'd like to...)


	2. fashion nation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *some violence, minor injuries, emotional scenes

 

When Spider-Man crawls around the side of a proximity building to the center of this whole fiasco, he can do nothing but sigh in exasperation at what meets him. It looks about ten times worse than what he saw on the TV.

 

J Jonah Jameson; (unfortunately) not a myth, the strangely mustached man, the bastardized legend, at it again.

 

“Come out, Spider- _Freak!”_ Jameson, who stands atop what appears to be a hastily constructed platform (who gave him a megaphone? Seriously? As if he wasn’t loud enough…) in front of the heavily guarded building what done stars in this here cluster-show. “We’ve got choppers and infra-red surrounding the area! You can’t escape!”

 

Peter absently wonders just _why_ the NYPD went along with all this.

 

Apart from, y’know, the absolute loathing of vigilantes that often snakes its way through the ranks.

 

The evidence – which is a large amount of riot-gear’d police standing about – alludes to it being perhaps a paid job. Maybe someone high-up requested something that couldn’t be denied by the grunts.

 

Eh – whatever.

 

Main point is – Spider-Man will _totally not_ steal that fat wad of cash they’re all guarding, despite it being an obvious trap. _Especially_ with it being an obvious trap.

 

Just for the record, if anyone’s listening: Spider-Man is officially and deeply offended by this tactic.

 

Did nobody get the memo that he is _not the bad guy?_

 

“You’d think they’d’ve figured it out by now,” Peter huffs sarcastically to himself, observing the strange shadows that tickle at his spidey-senses. They are moving about in the building the NYPD crouches around like sitting doves, and he’s got a big hunch that they _totally might_ steal whatever’s in there.

 

Spidey knows, intimately, that if he doesn’t stop the crime now, then they’ll find a way to blame him for all of it in the end, anyways.

 

“Great…” Peter grumbles, giving a cheeky wave to the chopper that’s decided to hover right over the building he’s attached to. He doesn’t wait to see if the pilot or whoever’s in it waves back, instead taking a particularly cool looking dive that ends with him attaching a web to an opposite building and easily busting through one of the top floor windows of his target building.

 

No doubt they’ll be using _that_ footage for years to come.

 

Look, New York! See how easily Spider-Man can obliterate your drafty, cheap windows with his entire body! What a menace; that Miley Cyrus meme went out of fashion months (years???) ago.

 

Rolling his eyes at the mental picture and dodging shards of glass littering the floor, Peter whistles jauntily as the would-be thieves all scatter and shriek at his sudden arrival, abandoning the great big bag of money in the center of the nearly dilapidated room.

 

“You know, with all the stupid stuff I’ve pulled,” Spider-Man remarks casually as he webs somebody’s foot to the floor. The other three people begin screaming anew, “you’d think people like you all would be more used to the unexpected. I mean – it was just a window. I’ve done worse.” Really. He has. He’s only pretending to be proud of it for cool points, though.

 

Spider-Man’s still officially ‘banned’ from Oscorp. It’s funny in an abjectly horrific way because he _doesn’t want to be in Oscorp Tower for any reason anyway._

 

“How did you all even get in here?” Peter questions, clipping somebody wearing an obnoxiously patterned pair of dance-pants (he doesn’t actually know the technical name) on the side of the jaw, causing them to go down with a short yell. “You mooks are a lot more unorganized than I’m used to. The Boys In Blue have got this place locked down tight, too. Unless…”

 

A bright light shines in through the doorway (with no door in it), then through the windows. A helicopter’s beating propellers deafen the building from much too close outside.

 

…Unless these people are _also_ a trap.

 

“ _Holy magnolias!”_ Peter shouts, barely dodging a barrage of bullets. He grabs the nearest person and throws them to the ground as well, senses telling him that they wouldn’t have dodged in time if he didn’t interfere. “These guys ain’t joking around, Stanley!”

 

The ‘criminals’ who were ‘stealing’ the cash are all now wearing some very official looking masks and pointing handguns at him, some of them having used special knives (because the NYPD have those now) to rip through Spidey’s webbings.

 

“Alright, alright,” Peter puts his hands up and trembles with the force of his screeching senses at the sudden appearance of way too many guns. “Take it easy – I’m sorry for calling you mooks unorganiz- _Yikes!”_

 

Dodging a few errant bullets, Spider-Man slinks his way onto the ceiling and somehow makes it across the dusty room towards the door. He’s driven away by a thrown object that scatters strange, peppery air everywhere and fogs the room up horribly.

 

Well, Peter thinks blandly as he begins choking and coughing. Now he knows why everybody else got invited to the party wearing gas masks. Obviously, he got passed over on the office payroll for _th_ _at_ monumentally important memo on purpose.

 

There are at least five other people in this room, and who knows how many other people scattered around inside this building, but all Peter can do is dodge the ways his spidey-senses are telling him to. He nearly doesn’t make it a few times, feeling the bite of a grazing bullet more than once on his body.

 

“ _Knock it off!”_ Spider-Man shouts into the harsh noise and blinding clouds of chemical. He hopes – as per usual – that no one can tell that he is scared, not angry. “I just got this sweater, you jerks –“

 

With a surprised grunt, Peter accidentally dodges right into someone else. By their own noise, they didn’t expect him to do that, and the two bodies flail for a moment before collapsing onto something softer than one would expect of this kind of cheap flooring.

 

On instinct, the human arachnid latches onto the soft thing with sticky hands, hoping to pull himself up more easily. Instead, he lifts the surprisingly light thing into the air and may or may not whack somebody in the gut, causing them both to smack into each other and wobble on their feet and knees, halfway through standing.

 

The person he collided with gives a short scream. Peter’s senses also scream.

 

And then they’re tripping out the window he broke not but a minute ago.

 

With an embarrassing string of gibberish badly disguised as some sort of thoughtful expletive, Peter lets go of the weighty thing in his arms long enough to shoot out many harried webs, locking himself and the other falling person in place barely a few yards above the pavement.

 

“Oh… Oh god…” The gas-masked person chokes, single free arm scrabbling slightly with the thick webbing around their middle attaching them to a window ledge further up. They swing back and forth haphazardly, gazing down at where Spider-Man is also strung up. “That… That didn’t go as… Planned.”

 

“You’re telling me,” Peter grunts. He accidentally tied himself to the weird bag thing, and now it’s inadvertently jabbing him in the stomach with a bunch of hard, square-like things.

 

 _Things._ It’s always _things_ that betray him in the end.

 

The spider caught in his own web takes a good glance around the area. Below him is, surprisingly, not an army of cops waiting to shoot him down, but instead just a few citizens with cellphones. He supposes that all of the NYPD previously guarding the building went inside said building when he stupidly decided to smash his way in.

 

The choppers spin in the air, as if indecisively. They’re all news choppers, so Jameson was hopefully bluffing with the unspoken threat of “we’ll shoot you down, one way or another.”

 

Speaking of…

 

“Hey there!” Peter has to crane his head almost painfully, but he can still somewhat spot the way Jameson is gaping up at him stupidly. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you. I think somebody, uhh… How to put it… _Set a trap.”_ He pretends to cluck his tongue in disappointment. “Terrible business, up in there. But don’t worry – I _cracked_ a window when someone decided to pass the gas without warning anybody first.”

 

While Jameson is busy becoming a sputtering mess and grapples for a walkie talkie, no doubt to call the NYPD back out, Peter hurriedly tries to escape his own webs. No dice.

 

Wow. It’s almost as if. He should have thought of this before.

 

Something smacks Peter in the face, and he yelps, belatedly catching the thing with his free hand.

 

It’s one of the special knives the NYPD developed specifically for cutting through his webs.

 

Peter looks up in confusion, seeing the blank, blank face of the gas mask staring down at him with a limp arm.

 

“…my name ain’t Stanley, by the way.”

 

“Good to know.”

 

Spider-Man salutes the sudden ally with their graciously offered knife, cutting through the thread attaching him to the building in one fluid motion. He immediately twists sideways and cuts his other hand free, webbing himself low to another building and launching himself away. He’s unsure how much time he’ll have before the NYPD try to follow, bullets blazing.

 

It’s somewhat gratifying to hear Jameson’s voice crack horribly as the older man screeches a rage-filled “Spider- _Maaaaaaaan!”_ at the retreating, airborne figure.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

It’s way less gratifying when Peter cuts through the webbing that held the bag all crunched up against his stomach, spilling out many many _many_ bundles of cold, hard cash.

 

…Also, Aunt May is walking in the front door, and here Peter is, laying about on the kitchen floor, stupefied and maskless and somewhat bloody, which is interesting, because he barely noticed any injuries before, but now they kind of sting and are making a mess.

 

It just paints the perfect picture, really.

 

“P- _Peter!”_ May gives a short yell, dropping her heavy purse to the floor. She stares down at Peter with a gaping mouth and a hand on her chest, sucking in air so fast that she chokes somewhat. “Peter! What in the name of… _Peter Benjamin Parker,_ what on earth are you- are you- are you _wearing!?”_

 

“I thought you knew,” Peter whispers, a little bit broken and whole lot floored. His hands hover over the incriminating evidence – which is his entire body, covered in cash, if you must know – as he sits stupidly on the floor.

 

“What do you _mean,_ ‘I thought you knew’; you thought I knew _what!?”_ May continues, also hovering her hands over and around her nephew, but her body seems to want to be pacing at the same time, so instead she taps a frantic stucco around the kitchen, occasionally sticking her head into other rooms like she can spot a prank camera, or hopeful that maybe it’ll transport her back into a universe that holds some form of normality. “Thought- thought I knew that my son- my nephew was- was- is a- a someone who dresses up as a- “

 

“You told me to wear the new sweater,” Peter says hollowly, still on the floor. He absently wonders what his face could possibly look like at the moment. May’s looks like a soggy tomato. He’s never ever going to tell her that. “The new sweater that only Spider-Man has. That only _I_ have. You- _you told me to wear it like two hours ago.”_

 

“I just thought- thought you were a strange _fan_ or something!” May defends, doing that thing where she tries to grab her forehead and her hips and spot to lean on at the same time. Stressful. “I thought I was showing my support, no matter how much I might’ve- might disapprove of your –“

 

“Just last week,” Peter continues softly, quietly, incredulously, “you told me to watch out for ‘pesky spiders.’”

 

“I saw a spider in the bathroom!” Aunt May has chosen to lean and grab her forehead at this point. A compromise.

 

“You stopped questioning me whenever I accidentally dye the washer pink,” the downed human-arachnid gains some speed. He now points haphazardly around the house, as if he can pin specific times down for joint scrutiny.

 

“I had given up at _some_ point!” May casts a somewhat stern eye down at her nephew. “There’s only so many times I can tell you not to wash… whatever it was you were washing –“

 

“My suit,” Peter interrupts, because he loves emotional pain and turmoil. “And none of it- the red stuff, was blood, ever, I promise. Kinda. Probably. I usually go at it with a rag first just in- I mean, I know I don’t look so hot right now, but –“

 

“ _Spider-Man,”_ May moans, “my son is _Spider-Man._ Spider-Man!”

 

“That’s the second time you’ve called me your son,” Spider-Man unmasked points out, hesitantly getting up off of the floor. He pretends not to notice that the movement of _tens of thousands of dollars_ falling off of his body and to the floor gives his aunt a mental hernia, so instead he moves slowly, like in a nature documentary. “So, does that mean…?”

 

Aunt May gives him the legit stink eye.

 

He puts his hands up in defense. Mercy on me, mother. “Hey – I thought you knew. I really did –“

 

“Well, _I didn’t!”_ May shouts somewhat, taking the hand off of her forehead in order to throw it into the air. “I mean – maybe, just maybe I had some, some sort of _intuition –“_

 

Peter opens his mouth.

 

May jabs a finger at him, jaw tightening. “Don’t you _dare_ say ‘mother’s intuition.’”

 

Peter closes his mouth.

 

May sighs after looking at him for several long moments. “I just… I wanted it not to be true. I wanted the, the _evidence_ to go away. To stop shoving its doubting face at me every moment of my life. Of _our_ life.”

 

“Aunt May…” Peter tilts his head to the side, eyes listing in guilt.

 

“…You’re not off the hook,” May declares suddenly. “You’re not out or away from my watch, either.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Peter replies dutifully. Best not to poke the lion.

 

“…And what in the world did you do to get all of that money?”

 

Oh. He wishes that all this hadn’t gone down while he was covered in dusty, stolen (technically) cash, but oh well.

 

“…Surpriiise?” Peter gives his aunt some pitiful jazz hands. It would be more effective if the special knife wasn’t still stuck to his palm.

 

She responds by throwing both arms into the air, making some sort of tired noise of absolution, and tottering into the living room to go collapse into her chair.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

Peter spends the next morning calling up his only dubiously legal contact (unless Tony Stark counts?)

 

“Deadpool,” he greets with, sighing because he already regrets everything. “I, well… I, um, hi –“

 

There’s a high-pitched squeal that has the enhanced human instantly flinching and pulling the cell phone away from his poor ear. “You _loved_ the sweater, right!? _Right!?_ I told you bitches he’d love that sweater! SUCK IT!”

 

Peter sighs again, just because. “Yea, thanks; the sweater is… the sweater is nice –“

 

“I saw you wearing it yesterday!” Deadpool’s excited voice continues, still completely bursting the volume control barrier that mere phones cannot adhere to. “Awww, baby’s first big money heist. I’m so proud –“

 

“It was _not_ a ‘money heist!’” Peter gapes into the air, offended. “It was a ploy! A ruse! A nefarious plot –“

 

“I could say ‘fuck you I don’t know what those words mean right now,’ but you have _delicate feelings_ or sommat like that so instead I’ll go with, ‘I think you’ve been spending too much time around people with way better vocabulary than me,’” Deadpool complains, loudly, as if they have any other volume. “And although I am tearing up in loving devotion as we gab… Whaddaya want, Webs? We both know you wouldn’t call up ol’ Pool just to compliment me on my knitting skills. Spill, dill.”

 

Peter takes that rare pause of breath from his dear friend (side of heavy sarcasm) as a chance to roll his eyes and slap a hand onto his forehead.

 

There. Now that he’s in a suitably dramatic position…

 

“I’ve got about fifty-thousand dollars stuffed under my bed right now, and I feel like I just robbed a bank.”

 

“That’s because ya’ did.”

 

“Did not.” Peter sniffles, indignant. “And it wasn’t a bank, it was just some dilapidated old building that New York seems to never run out of. Anyway, I need your help –“

 

Another screech, one that has him groaning out loud this time.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Deadpool says, laughter in their voice, which Peter does not appreciate at this time, mostly because he knows that when Deadpool says ‘sorry’, they don’t actually _mean_ ‘sorry’ about 85% of the time. “That one was just me getting stabbed. I thought it’d be cool to answer the phone while doing sweet knife tricks, but then I remembered that you can’t _see_ my awesome moves and then I forgot I had a knife in my hand.” They stop to clear their throat daintily. “Go on.”

 

Oh, _god._ “So, my dilemma is that I can’t really… return the money? Because then they’d probably just try to capture me again – they being the NYPD or whatever goons Jameson decides to throw around… Anyway, I don’t think I can just… keep it, either? Because if I get caught with it or try to use it anywhere -”

 

“The serial numbers will match the dough that was supposedly stolen by the world’s most sassiest spider, I gotcha,” the merc finishes for him, making a noise that may just be a stretch, but may also be connected to ‘getting stabbed.’ Peter tries not to think about it too hard. “Well, my fine-legged friend who somehow enjoys that monstrosity pattern that argyle knit is -”

 

“Hey -”

 

“You have come to the right place.” Another string of obscenely disgusting noises. “Don’t worry, spidey-pal; mama Dead-pal will fix you right up with something nice an’ discreet an’ illegal ‘n shit.”

 

“Ehh...”

 

“What? _What?”_ Deadpool sounds put out. “I didn’t say ‘daddy’ this time, ain’t you supposed to be happy?”

 

“I’m going to ignore that because I am simultaneously your worst and best friend,” Peter says as gently as possible. “And no – it’s still too cringe. Please don’t call yourself the parent of anybody ever again.”

 

“Boo. I’ll have you know that I’m a _great_ mother in an alternate comicverse.” The merc must have set the phone down, because there’s a clunk, and then what sounds like somebody grumbling about ‘hard to please spiders and their social wiles.’

 

Peter gets in a good natured and somewhat disturbed – though no more than usual, when dealing with Deadpool – eye roll before he’s leaping several feet into the air at a commanding screech for _“WEASEL!”_ from within the phone.

 

He decides to just hang up after that. Wade can call him back later.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

“Honestly, webhead...” Johnny shivers, looking down upon the simultaneously dark and light city with squinting eyes in the cold wind. Snowflakes melt against his blue-clad shoulders despite the lack of superhuman flaming-on. “Are you _sure_ you couldn’t have just donated the money to a homeless shelter or something instead of… _this?”_

 

Spider-Man groans, sifting through the piles and boxes of labeled bags on the very top of the Baxter Building. He tries really hard not to knock over any of the scientific doo-dads littered about the place, no doubt being some of the Fantastic Four’s experiments. _“Yes,_ I’m sure, you frickin’ garbage can fire – are you gonna help me or not?”

 

“Of course I’ll help you,” the world’s most annoying flashlight coos, stepping over to where Peter is crouched down with his arms deep into a box and patting his masked head. “My criminal friend who apparently can’t use money the normal way because he _fucking stole it.”_

 

“Hey!” Peter swats Johnny’s hand away, miffed. “Don’t antagonize me! Do you know how long it took me to embroider all of these blankets? And how hard it is to sort all these socks and all this food and soap and dry shampoo? I’m turning a bad, _sorta maybe kinda_ illegal situation into a good cause!”

 

Johnny laughs a little bit and opens his mouth, but before he can say anything (no doubt douche-baggish-ly,) Reed, who is sitting on a tacky lawn chair and fiddling with something while being apparently invulnerable (or just unnoticing) of the bitter cold, pipes up with a “Johnny don’t be a dick.”

 

Ben, who is also in on this peanut gallery, looks up long enough from roasting ten marshmallows on one stick over a portable fire in order to give a throaty chuckle.

 

Spidey waves at the two to show his appreciation before turning back to a pouting Johnny. “Besides, you think the police department would ever use that fifty-thousand to help the homeless population? I don’t think so. I’m practically doing this city a favor.” And from the mouth of Aunt May: “Lord knows it could use one.”

 

“Bet your friend Deadpool told you that, didn’t he...” Johnny grumbles in a tone that Peter absolutely ignores.

 

“Hey – once I made sure he knew what was and wasn’t okay to say to me under any circumstances, he’s a pretty nice guy to have around,” the spider defends his sort-of-friend. “You should try it sometime.”

 

“What, being a criminal?”

 

Peter stands up in one quick motion and taps Johnny lightly under the chin, obliterating the pursed lips and replacing them with a confused mouth twist. “No, you hothead – I meant having conversations and better understanding different people.”

 

Spider-Man flips an extensively drawn on map into view.

 

“ _Whiiich_ you’re going to need to do as we give out these care packages along the routes I’ve planned for us to visit,” Peter explains. “I put the most focus on the places that have the highest amount of congregated homelessness, but we can deviate if we get tips or find more people.”

 

“Uh, what?” Johnny says. “Not about the map – that’s actually a really good idea, I was worried about accidentally throwing packages at some very grungy, though not homeless people’s faces – but about the conversations. What does that have to do with anything?”

 

“Well, when you’re a homeless person, sometimes your only positive interactions comes from the people you _know_ won’t assault or mug you,” Peter informs, giving Johnny the map to hold. He’d already memorized which routes he wants to hit. “Or sometimes they know somebody who needs help, and you have to follow them up on that. Which is why I’m guessing that this will take the entire night, if not longer.”

 

Johnny looks like he’s about to say something, but Reed makes a clear-throat sound. Ben chuckles again and eats four s’mores at once. Peter’s kind of jealous.

 

“You know...” The fantastic four member sighs out, slinging an arm around Spidey’s shoulders. “Sometimes, you are too much of a good thing.”

 

“Um, thanks?” Shrugging the arm off, Peter takes one more perfunctory look around the setup on the roof. “You’re not backing out, are you? Because I can always call Gwen –“

 

“Jeez; is this how you take compliments? Threatening to replace your super volunteer with a _not-so-super_ volunteer?” Johnny walks backwards and snags a random bag of care packages, hopping up onto the edge of the building’s flat top. “Are we doing this or what? You’re using up valuable Fantastic Four time with this, so use – or abuse,” a saucy wink that definitely deserves a hearty eye roll, “wisely.”

 

Spider-Man can’t resist that eye roll, which Johnny can’t actually see, so he makes sure to do a really complicated hand-spring and flip, using his webs to grab and sling a great handful of bags towards himself as he goes. He ends up perched right next to Johnny on the concrete outcropping, looking down on the city with big white bug-eye’d lenses.

 

“Stick to the map!” Peter calls just microseconds before slinging himself off the side of the building, attaching his bundle of bags to his sticky feet because he figures this is the most logical way to transport them and he’s about 95% fine with looking ridiculous. “And don’t be _mean_ to anybody!”

 

Johnny can’t even yell a hypocritical “Showoff!” back because his powers flaming to life are too loud, and Peter is already bracketed by wind and far away.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

“You wore Deadpool’s sweater _and_ MJ’s awful thigh-highs while you were giving out embroidered ‘I Heart New York’ blankets to the homeless?” Gwen accuses right as Peter accepts the call, shouldering his way into a food mart while juggling both a cellphone and messing with his tote bag.

 

“Um, yea? It was cold?” Peter shoots back, utterly unaffected. “Also, it was more than just my amazing embroidery skills – there was, like, food and soap and other stuff – but thanks for noticing anyway.”

 

As Peter smacks a couple of hot chocolate canisters off the shelf and into his shopping basket, he listens to a cold-ridden Gwen, who is now paying the price for spending one too many nights cramped in an impersonal lab without sleep, suck snot up her nose. Peter’s definitely in love.

 

“Thanks for letting me know, by the way,” Gwen tells him in a sarcastic tone, taking a sip of something. Probably tea, with the way her throat sounds. “Your whole ‘be right back, I gotta do stuff, don’t get snot on the blanket I made you’ was _definitely_ clear and concise and didn’t leave me questioning just what the heck you were about to do _at all.”_

 

Wincing slightly and turning an aisle corner, he almost bumps into someone who gives him an odd look. The spiderling picks up a carton of organic eggs and shifts everything around so that he can balance his cellphone in between his shoulder and ear, opening the case and counting the eggs to make sure none are broken. “Do I get to say sorry, or do you require more peace offerings? I gotta warn you though – I’m kinda out of supplies to work with at this point.”

 

“I _bet_ you’re out of supplies, after how many blankets you –“ Muffled coughing sounds. Gwen’s so polite that she must have pulled the phone away from her face. _“Ugh._ Why did I think completing that assignment early was worth sacrificing my general health again?”

 

“Can I offer you a bona fide Aunt May knitted scarf in these trying times?” Peter hovers around the candy aisle, reluctant to walk up to the checkout till while still on the phone. That’d be a rude thing to do to the employee on duty. “I feel obligated to warn you – it honestly looks more like a gutless, strung out ferret than an actual scarf. It’s made with love though?”

 

“Mm, pass. I don’t want you to go out of your way just to _swing_ by. You might catch what I have.” She clears her throat in a way that seems to pain her somewhat. “Although… I _do_ have some old stuff you might want.”

 

“Oh, yea?” Peter finds a box of hard ‘Avengers shaped’ candies. He tries not to laugh out loud. He also tries not to immediately toss it into his shopping cart. It’s surprisingly expensive.

 

“Yea,” Gwen replies, just as slick and conniving as him. “I mean, I never wear them anymore. And you’re about as tall as I am, so they should fit.”

 

Spider-Man-in-disguise picks up a container of chocolate spiders. They’re inelegant things – the only resemblance to actual spiders they have are the shoddily printed dents on the front of their roundly cut shapes. He slips them into his basket anyway, seeing as they’re discounted from Halloween.

 

“I’m listening,” Peter hums, chewing on an idea like mental gum.

 

*

* * *

 

*

 

When Peter walks into They Daily Bugle’s main floor a few weeks later, he’s decked out in ways that make Betty gasp and light up.

 

“ _Mister Parker,”_ Betty drawls, pushing herself backwards in her rolling chair in an inelegant oval around Peter and tapping her pen to her lips as if she were a contemplating fashion designer. “I do say – I’m overjoyed that that cap has made a reappearance. It truly suits the workplace joke and aesthetic.”

 

“Eh, it was raining...” Peter grins, flipping the newsboy cap off of his head and shaking it of any droplets before replacing it. “And listen to you, getting with the times; _aesthetic,_ huh?”

 

“My, my...” Betty sighs, looking their youngest office member up and down with a smile that shows her dimples more than her wrinkles. “This is the most color I’ve ever seen in this building – please tell me that this isn’t a one time walk. I’d hate to see your hidden talents go to waste after _this_ little demonstration.”

 

“H- hidden talents? Well, I wouldn’t go that far...” Peter evades, hand flapping excitedly near his thigh. He hides it by casually slipping his forearm in between his bag’s straps and resting it there. “Oh – my aunt _did_ send with me some of her chicken piccata – it’s yours if you’d like it. I know you don’t leave the office for lunch very often...”

 

Betty can’t seem to help herself when she makes an excited ‘oooh!’ face, looking at the container that Peter pulls out of his tote with red cheeks. “If I were about twenty-five years younger, I’d think you were flirting with me!”

 

“ _Twenty_ _-five_ _!?”_ Peter blinks in genuine confusion. Betty certainly doesn’t look any older than maybe her late thirties.

 

The office woman must take this as some sort of staged compliment, because she laughs happily as she accepts Peter’s offering, nails glimmering in a pale plum shade. “See? You really are a natural charmer –“

 

“Who’s flirting in my office?” Jameson suddenly barks from way closer than anyone expected. Several interns scurrying about near one of the printers leap high into the air or spill things like coffee and papers. Peter merely gazes blankly at the wall next to his boss’s head, vacantly smiling. “Betty! How many times do I have to tell you not to hold people up with your –“

 

Jameson stops. Sputters a bit. Looks Peter up and down in a less kind way than Betty had.

 

The head of The Daily Bugle seems to have trouble taking in Peter’s candy-stripe thigh-highs and cottony blue shorts. His eyes particularly bulge at the heeled, clear sparkly gellies on Peter’s feet. His focus moves up and spot the soft fluffy sweater that would certainly not be found in any ‘male’ section of a store, nor the piled floaty scarf or the long layered necklace of light pink designs underneath it. On Peter’s wrists are those cheap rubber bracelets that come from the children’s aisle, matched with fingerless gloves that have an attachable mitten function for warmth.

 

The young man currently under such scrutiny adjusts his dark blue cat-eye glasses, resisting the urge to fiddle with his newsboy cap once again.

 

“I’m here to turn in those photos you asked for, Mr. J.” Peter pipes up with, derailing whatever caustic thing the man might’ve been about to spout. “You know – the ones where Spider-Man is trying to wrestle with a raccoon in the middle of breaking up a knife fight and not doing too well?”

 

He’s still very embarrassed about that. Please don’t ask; Spider-Man doesn’t have any answers. In fact, if the upcoming news report is anything to go by, _nobody_ has answers.

 

As Peter casually slips the folder of photographs out of his tote bag, Jameson’s face becomes increasingly red in that way that means there is frustrated breath holding involved. Oh boy.

 

“I have them right here.” Peter shoves the manilla folder right up under Jameson’s nose, to be more effective and all. “Thigh highs are pretty popular these days, you know sir. Maybe picking the photographs with the clearest view of them will get better popularity for the front page.”

 

Jameson looks down at the folder, then further to Peter’s legs, looks up at Peter’s face, back to the folder, then snatches it out of his hands.

 

“You are a fashion disaster if I’ve ever seen one,” Jameson tells him in a surprisingly calm and collected voice. Well, ‘calm and collected’ for Jameson, at least. “And I don’t pay you to frolic around and _act cute,_ so these had better be top notch; you hear me, Parker?”

 

Peter chokes back an “aye aye, sir!” and nods dutifully, hands clutching at his bag so that they don’t swing stupidly open and taskless at his sides.

 

As their boss stomps away, hopefully to his office and not off to terrorize someone else, Peter and Betty share a wide-eyed look. Despite their (recently revealed to be surprisingly large) age difference, it inexplicably reminds Peter of being in primary school again.

 

Betty suddenly makes an interested noise, hand coming out to fondle Peter’s tote bag. Peter wasn’t really expecting this, apprehensive about anybody touching his unofficial spidey bag (he likes to be prepared when walking around New York City these days, so he brought it with him.) He accidentally lets out a little nervous titter.

 

“What’s this?” Betty asks, fingering a new patch of stringy, woven black fabric on the broadest side of the bag. “Did you do this? It looks… interesting.”

 

This time, Peter lets out a real laugh, holding his bag up in a way that is both out of her reach and also within both of their lines of sight. He is, obviously, a master of being subtle, and this movement isn’t awkward at all. Obviously. “It’s a spider! I ran out of thread because of- of, uh… Some things happening...”

 

See? Smooth, smooth as sandpaper.

 

“It looks a bit wobbly and crooked,” Peter continues, staring resolutely at the little embroidered spider on his bag. The only one he could afford to make with such limited supplies, “but… I think it’s still a pretty good spider, despite everything.”

 

He blinks a few times, realizing that he sort of spaced out and maybe said some things that he shouldn’t. He looks back up to Betty and sees and odd expression on her face, like she has no idea what just transpired, but is nice enough not to ask any probing questions.

 

Besides, whatever conversation they could have continued with is interrupted by a small crowd of interns flocking around several of their phones, all chattering excitedly over some new development.

 

Amongst these harrowed chatterings, Peter snatches a few very important words. Words like “wow I think there’s a shoot out going down over there.”

 

The average worker is only productive for about three hours of the workday, after all. At least these people don’t beat around the bush.

 

“I just realized that I have something very important to do,” he announces quickly – too quickly – and he’d _love_ to stay and demonstrate to everybody that he’s _definitely_ not as weird as they think he is, except he’s already jogging to the elevator and proving them all right. “So bye, nice to see you Betty, hope you enjoy your lunch –!”

 

Betty gets in a quick, startled wave before the elevator doors close. Peter had hastily shut them with his telepathic spidey powers.

 

He’s lying. He just rapid-fire pressed the ‘Close Doors’ button, which is the kind that he suspects exists only as a placebo for irritated employees (and their angry bosses), but the sooner he gets out of this building, the sooner he can get to his _‘other job.’_

 

Uh-oh, he thinks, sending a quick and most likely ineffective text with his phone – it looks like he’s going to have to postpone his lunch date with Harry.

 

Humming an anxious tune, Peter bounces lightly on the balls of his feet as the elevator continues its slow descent.

 

When he finally gets out of the building, finds a good hiding spot, and immediately goes for shucking off his shoes, he’s stalled a few seconds longer than normal by the complicated strap and buckle design.

 

If he had a moment, he’d smack his forehead.

 

“Why couldn’t I have, oh, I dunno, thought ahead for once?” A half-dressed Spider-Man chastises himself, shoving a necklace into his bag and shivering in the somewhat biting air. He nearly falls over trying to get his legs out of the small shorts. “I could be helpful! And _smart!_ And- and- _hnnng!”_ And he could choke on his own scarf! Because why not!

 

He swings into action as soon as he’s ready, not even realizing that he forgot to take off his thigh-highs until he’s already halfway to the scene of action and his spidey-pants feel a little bit less roomy inside than usual…

 

Peter “fashion disaster” Parker, indeed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be short. a couple of single snippets with the 'WSD??' gang and then the 'act of kindness' finale that utilizes Peter's adorable embroidery skills. but _noooo_ , I just _had_ to have a weird dream about JJ convincing the NYPD to set a trap for spiderman.
> 
>  
> 
> deadpool: [drops off clothes and bad advice] [exits stage left]  
> spiderman: i'm not accepting either of those  
> spiderman: [accepts clothes AND bad advice] [Plays His Damn Self]


End file.
